whitmanpropertytax.site Open in urlscan Pro
192.254.185.139  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

Skip to content

Whitman County Property Tax Procedural Problems

 * Procedural Problems with the Whitman County Property Tax Assessment


PROCEDURAL PROBLEMS WITH THE WHITMAN COUNTY PROPERTY TAX ASSESSMENT




UPCOMING PUBLIC FORUM – MONDAY, APRIL 1, 6PM AT THE NEILL PUBLIC LIBRARY

Please spread the word:

 * Facebook Event Link
 * NextDoor Event Link
 * This Website Link


OVERVIEW

Many in the city of Pullman have seen their property taxes increase 15-200% in
2024. This includes virtually everyone on Pioneer Hill and Sunnyside Hill. It
also includes some others throughout the city, most often those who made a
purchase in the 2020-2022 timeframe and hadn’t been assessed since 2015.
You may have even contacted the County Assessor’s Office and been given an
explanation that satisfied you and you were now trying to figure out how to pay
for it. This website is to describe in detail why this happened, and begin the
process to correct what we believe is a grave mistake. The key takeaways from
everything below should be the following:

 * THIS IS NOT A TAX INCREASE ON THE COUNTY AS A WHOLE.
 * EACH TAX DISTRICT, BY STATE LAW, IS ONLY ALLOWED TO INCREASE TAXES BY 1% PER
   YEAR.
 * THIS IS A PROBLEM WITH THE ASSESSMENT PROCEDURE THAT IS MAKING THOSE WHO WERE
   REASSESSED THIS YEAR PAY AN OUTSIZED PORTION OF THE TAXES.


HISTORY

There are three state laws that are important to this discussion:

 1. Washington State mandates that all properties be assessed at 100% of actual
    value.
 2. Washington State mandates that physical inspection and assessment be done at
    least every 6 years.
 3. Washington State only allows non-voted-on property taxes collected by each
    taxation district to go up by 1% annually.

Whitman County has been not good, to put it mildly, at adhering to those first
two mandates. There are many, many properties in the county that are currently
assessed at 30-50% of their actual value. Furthermore the state government has
been demanding that counties expedite the process of bringing assessed values up
to actual values.


THE PROBLEM

So from the start, we can rule out that there has been a large county-wide tax
increase. That isn’t allowed by state law for non-voted-on property taxes, and
for Pullman there hasn’t been a vote-on property tax increase for this year.
Each tax district that you belong to — hospital, school, county — is likely
taxing at their 2023 amount plus 1%. So for one person on the south side of
Pullman to see a $4000 tax increase and many people on the south side of Pullman
and elsewhere in the county see a $500 tax decrease, it is obvious there is
something else that is amiss.

When we saw this disparity, we called the County Assessor to investigate the
problem. During those phone calls we discovered the following details:

 1. These portions of Pullman were the first group subjected to the effort to
    bring assessed property values up to 100% actual value.
 2. The assessors plan is to first bring assessed values up 80% of actual value,
    with a second round to be done later, after all have been assessed at 80%.

The root of the problem is that a small portion of the county was assessed at
these much higher values, thus shifting the ratio of these two sections relative
to the sum total of all assessed values. The tax districts aren’t collecting
more taxes, it is just that those who have been re-assessed are paying a larger
percentage of the total revenues of the tax district.

Expand this section to show a spreadsheet that completely illustrates how this
rapid catchup to actual values punishes those first assessed.


CAN THE COUNTY ASSESSOR DO THIS?

We believe the answer is a resounding: “No!”

There are a variety of United States and Washington State Supreme Court cases in
which unfair taxation has been ruled as a violation of the Equal Protection
Clause of the 14th Amendment. The most pertinent to our situation seems to be

 * Sioux City Bridge Co. v. Dakota County, 260 U.S. 441 (1923)
 * Allegheny-Pittsburgh Coal Co. v. County Comm’n, 488 U.S. 336 (1989)
 * Dore v. Kinnear, 79 Wn.2d 755, 489 P.2d 898 (1971).

In the Sioux City… case, near the end of the decision, the majority opinion
states that they can’t compel a county to reassess all properties because it is
a timely process. However, the decision also says that when timely reassessment
isn’t possible or adhered to, that the taxpayer should only be taxed at the same
level as their peers until such a time that assessments result in equality:

> The conclusion in these and other federal authorities is that such a result as
> that reached by the Supreme Court of Nebraska is to deny the injured taxpayer
> any remedy at all because it is utterly impossible for him by any judicial
> proceeding to secure an increase in the assessment of the great mass of
> underassessed property in the taxing district. This Court holds that the right
> of the taxpayer whose property alone is taxed at 100 percent of its true value
> is to have his assessment reduced to the percentage of that value at which
> others are taxed even though this is a departure from the requirement of
> statute. The conclusion is based on the principle that, where it is impossible
> to secure both the standard of the true value, and the uniformity and equality
> required by law, the latter requirement is to be preferred as the just and
> ultimate purpose of the law. (emphasis added)
> 
> Sioux City Bridge Co. v. Dakota County, 260 U.S. 441 (1923)

Later cases, such as the Allegheny-Pittsburgh… case further gave further leeway
to assessing authorities such that if they have a systematic process that
doesn’t overly burden a taxpayer on average over the period of the systematic
assessment process unfairly compared to their peers, in a manner that is
“arbitrary, capricious, or intentional”, then they can be said to have met the
standard of “equal protection under the law”. Even a memo from the Washington
State Attorney General’s office from 1992 (link) described how very specific
conditions must be met in order for the Equal Protection standard to be
satisfied:

> “The United States Supreme Court likewise has addressed the issue of
> regularity in assessment systems in Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co. v. Webster
> Cy., 488 U.S. 336, 102 L. Ed. 2d 688, 109 S. Ct. 633 (1989).  The taxpayers
> inAllegheny owned real property suitable for coal mining.  The Webster County
> Assessor had a practice of assessing recently sold properties at current
> market value and making only minor adjustments to properties that were not
> sold.  This practice had resulted in assessment and tax rates that were
> approximately 8 to 35 times higher on recently sold properties than those
> applied to comparable neighboring properties that had not been recently sold. 
> The practice was challenged as a violation of uniformity and equal
> protection.  The United States Supreme Court agreed with the taxpayers that
> they had been denied equal protection because the assessor’s actions were not
> designed to result in equalizing the burden on comparable properties over
> time.  In condemning this system, the court indicated what elements a proper
> reappraisal system would contain:
> As long as general adjustments are accurate enough over a short period of time
> to equalize the differences in proportion between the assessments of a class
> of property holders, the Equal Protection Clause is satisfied. . . . In each
> case, the constitutional requirement is the seasonable attainment of a rough
> equality in tax treatment of similarly situated property owners.” (emphasis
> added)
> 
> Authority of County Board of Equalization to Equalize the Assessment of
> Property, AGO 1992 No. 14 – Jul 15 1992, Attorney General Ken Eikenberry

Attorney General Ekinberry’s memo continues to describe the Dore v. Kinnear…
case from the Washington State Supreme Court regarding unfair taxation that
occurred in King County:

> The necessary elements for a valid cyclical revaluation process were further
> delineated in Dore v. Kinnear, 79 Wn.2d 755, 489 P.2d 898(1971). In Dore, the
> Washington Supreme Court struck down the King County Assessor’s valuations for
> the first year of a four-year cycle as a violation of the equal protection
> clauses of the state and federal constitutions and the uniformity provisions
> of the fourteenth amendment to the state constitution. The King County
> Assessor had revalued only six percent of the parcels within King county in
> the first year of a four-year cyclical process. The court contrasted this
> failure to approach the level of revaluation necessary to complete the process
> in a systematic four-year manner with the good faith efforts of the assessors
> in the Carkonen case. The court required, above all, that the process be
> systematic. (emphasis added)
> 
> Authority of County Board of Equalization to Equalize the Assessment of
> Property, AGO 1992 No. 14 – Jul 15 1992, Attorney General Ken Eikenberry

*** The process taken by the county assessors does not meet these requirements.
In fails on several fronts:

 1. It is arbitrary. There is no rationale for why this portion of the county
    was selected first, and the same unequal effect would have occurred for any
    portion of the county that was singled out and assessed far above their
    peers. It is possibly capricious, as the recent sales on other hills
    triggering assessments not done on nearby homes seems to target home with a
    new known assessment.
 2. The Whitman County assessment has been far from “systematic”. Even if the
    current County Assessment Plan describes and is adhering to a systematic
    process, prior failures to execute a systematic process results in a
    situation of unfair taxation.
    * Some people haven’t been reassessed for 14 years, while others have been
      on 6 year intervals.
    * The state law standard for assessment of 100% of actual value has not been
      followed for decades (until now).
    * Some people who hadn’t been reassessed for the past 9 years were
      reassessed this year, while others weren’t.
 3. The approach taken does not result in a tax burden that is approximately
    even over the systematic assessment process, even if a systematic process is
    adhered to going forward. It does not “[attain] a rough equality in tax
    treatment of similarly situated property owners” as required by the Supreme
    Court and cited as the standard by the Washington State Attorney General.




PLAN OF ACTION

Step 1: Make those who have been adversely affected aware of the problem.

Step 2: We are having a public forum on Monday, April 1 at 6PM at the Neill
Public Library to discuss. There will be news media and several city and other
politicians there to hear what we have to say. We also invited the County
Assessor to speak if she wishes, and will reserve time for her if she chooses to
come.



Step3: Devise a set of individual and collective actions that will ensure that
this problem of unfair taxation be resolved.

 * Email your city council members, assessor, commissioners, and other local
   politicians.
 * Make a collective petition to the County Assessor to clearly describe how
   this constitutes unfair taxation and ask her to voluntarily correct the
   mistake.
 * If a voluntary correction isn’t done, collectively seek reparations in the
   courts.
 * Any other actions that we can devise at the public meeting that will further
   our cause.


CONTACT INFO

For those wishing to have more info, please contact John Swensen at
jpswensen+taxissue@gmail.com


GALLERY OF SOME OF THE MOST EGREGIOUS CASES

 * Example Pioneer Hill home: 106% increase in 2024. 9 years since last
   assessed. 

 * Example Pioneer Hill home: 94% increase. 9 years since last assessed.

 * Example Sunnyside Hill home: 241% increase in 2024. 9 years since last
   assessed. Note: Likely more undervalued than others, but still a sticker
   shock and an immense amount of money
   
    
   
   
 * Counterexample on Military Hill home: Similarly valued house to Pioneer Hill
   examples. Hasn’t been reassessed in 9 years, and wasn’t reassessed this year.
 * Counterexample on Military Hill: A low valued home that hasn’t been
   reassessed in at least 14 years. Wasn’t reassessed this year either.

 * Previous
 * Next

Designed with WordPress